Wednesday, April 9, 2014

(Excerpted from my book Return of the Swastika, Voice of India, Delhi 2007, Ch. 1.3-4)

The secularists are bad losers.They are the kind of pupil who tampers with
his school report before showing it to dad.For fifteen years, I have seen them bluffing to obscure the fact of
their defeat in the Ayodhya evidence debate.Now, their thesis of a Hindutva fascism had not been confirmed on any
score at all even after six years of BJP rule at the Centre.So, they had to make up some evidence for the
same.

While the BJP hadn’t behaved like
Nazis in practice, at least we could turn them into mental Nazis, just regular
Indians but who harboured a morbid admiration for the Nazis?Fresh from the textbook controversy at the
National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), secularist
attention was turned to the textbooks in Gujarat,
supposedly a Hindutva hellhole under BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi.There, it was alleged, children were
indoctrinated with pro-Nazi propaganda.

In the inevitable Times of India
(30 September 2004),
one Harit Mehta claims: “In Modi’s Gujarat,
Hitler is a textbook Hero”.Let’s hear
his story: “Gandhi is not so great, but Hitler is.Welcome to high school education in Narendra
Modi's Gujarat, where authors of social
studies textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks have
found faults with the freedom movement and glorified Fascism and Nazism.While a Class VIII student is taught
‘negative aspects’ of Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, the Class X social
studies textbook has chapters on ‘Hitler, the Supremo’ and ‘Internal
Achievements of Nazism’.”

Readers familiar with secularist and
generally Indian English discourse will know that “Supremo” is a simple
descriptive term, meaning “the man at the top”.It does not imply that the user of the term is an admirer of the person
designated “Supremo”.Thus, the
secularists themselves often refer to the RSS Sarsanghchalak as the “RSS
Supremo”, though they hate him.As for
the internal achievements of Nazism, practitioners of the “political abuse of
history” (to borrow the title of a 1989 pamphlet by the JNU historians) may
prefer morality tales in black and white, where the evil German race supported
Hitler in spite of his purely negative achievements, but genuine historians
acknowledge that the Nazi programme contained attractive points and the Nazi
regime achieved real successes in some fields, otherwise Hitler’s popularity and
rise to power would have been unexplainable.

Mehta specifies: “The Class X book presents a
frighteningly uncritical picture of Fascism and Nazism. The strong national
pride that both these phenomena generated, the efficiency in the bureaucracy
and the administration and other ‘achievements’ are detailed, but pogroms
against Jews and atrocities against trade unionists, migrant labourers, and any
section of people who did not fit into Mussolini or Hitler's definition of
rightful citizen don't find any mention.‘They committed the gruesome and inhuman act of suffocating 60 lakh Jews
in gas chambers’ is all the book, authored by a panel, mentions of the
holocaust.”

So, even in the partisan reporting by the Times
of India, at least in the fine print, it is admitted that the textbook (1) does
mention the Holocaust, detailing its death toll as 6 million, and (2) adds an
explicit condemnation of the Holocaust as “gruesome and inhuman”.The title of this article and even more so
the titles of all the derivative articles in the world press alleging Holocaust
denial are thereby rendered mendacious.The reporter, or more formally the Times of India editor,
responsible for the article titles, stands exposed as a liar.All those who based their stories on the Times
of India headline, stand exposed as either accomplices in the lie or silly
fishwives.

Mehta continues: “The section on ‘Ideology of
Nazism’ reads: ‘Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government
within a short time by establishing a strong administrative set up.He created the vast state of Greater
Germany.He adopted the policy of
opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German
race.He adopted a new economic policy
and brought prosperity to Germany.He began efforts for the eradication of
unemployment.He started constructing
public buildings, providing irrigation facilities, building railways, roads and
production of war materials.He made
untiring efforts to make Germany
self-reliant within one decade.Hitler
discarded the Treaty of Versailles by calling it just ‘a piece of paper’ and
stopped paying the war penalty.He
instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people.’”

I have checked with the original (Social
Studies textbook, standard 10, Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks, 2003
reprint of the 1993 edition, p.71), and the last-quoted sentence reads in full:
“He instilled the spirit of adventure in the common people, but in doing so he
led Germany
to extreme nationalism and caused the Second World War.”This was obviously not meant as a compliment
to the Nazis, which is why the Times of India chose to unquote it.

The wording is clumsy, but the account is not
untruthful.Hitler was a charismatic
speaker, he did pursue an anti-Jewish policy, he did advocate German racial
superiority and he did discard the Treaty of Versailles.His Keynesian economic policies were indeed
successful in the short run, particularly in pushing back unemployment, which
is why they were emulated by many social-democratic governments after
1945.So, the textbook gives a balanced
account of the Nazi era: acknowledging its economic and diplomatic successes up
to 1939, but also teaching about the anti-Jewish policies and the “gruesome and
inhuman” Holocaust.

But the Times of India is against
balanced history-writing, and not only on the subject of Nazism.Thus, India’s leading newspaper rejects
any account of Mahatma Gandhi that is less than hagiographical: “A few classes
junior, students in Gandhi's home state read that the Bapu really may have been
overrated.In the chapter on ‘Gandhian
Era and National Movement’, there's a section sub-headlined ‘The Negative
Aspect’.”Here at least, the Marxist
hard core in the educational establishment should not have any objections against
the so-called BJP textbooks, for in his day, Gandhiji was fiercely criticized
by the Left.Oh yes, there were
negative aspects to the Mahatma’s career.

The story of the “Nazi” schoolbooks
got picked up quickly, lies and all, in policy-making circles in WashingtonD.C.On 15 March 2005 the US House of Representatives heard Rep.
John Conyers introduce House Resolution 156, reintroduced a few days later as
Resolution 160, indicting Narendra Modi:

“Condemning the conduct of Chief Minister
Narendra Modi for his actions to incite religious persecution and urging the United States
to condemn all violations of religious freedom in India. (…)
Whereas the Supreme Court of India has reported that those arrested in
connection with the bombings and retaliatory attacks on Hindus in India have
claimed that they carried out their actions ‘in revenge for the state-assisted
killings of Muslims in Gujarat’; Whereas the United States Department of State
has discussed in one of its reports the role of Chief Minister Modi and his
government in promoting attitudes of racial supremacy, racial hatred, and the
legacy of Nazism through his government's support of school textbooks in which
Nazism is glorified; Whereas the United States Department of State has found
that Chief Minister Modi revised the text of high school social studies
textbooks in Gujarat schools to describe the ‘charismatic personality’ of
‘Hitler the Supremo’, and the ‘achievements’ of Nazism at great length, while
failing to acknowledge the Nazi extermination policies, the concentration
camps, and the religious persecution that occurred under the Nazi
regime; Now therefore, be it Resolved,
That the House of Representatives (1) condemns the conduct of Chief
Minister Narendra Modi for condoning or inciting bigotry and intolerance
against any religious group in India, including people of the Christian and
Islamic faiths; (…)”

Note
the exculpation of the numerous Islamic terror attacks on Hindus as
“retaliatory”.This is now the standard
secularist line: any and every Islamic crime is an understandable “retaliation”
for the central event of Indian history, the Gujarat
riots.It makes me wonder whether Rep.
Conyers would dare to say on thefloor
of the House that Islamic attacks on Americans are “retaliatory”.Yet, that exactly is the explicit message of
the perpetrators, who invoke American mass killings of Iraqis and the like as
the justification for “hitting back” at America.

After this expression of
American brain-dead parroting of Indian secularist propaganda, it was no
surprise that the USA
subsequently refused an entry visa to Narendra Modi when he was scheduled to
visit the country.The stated reason was
his violation of the International Religious Freedom Act.Indo-American Communists and American Christian
fanatics jointly hailed this ban as a great success for their own lobbying.

The
Gujarat textbook affair, bis

Indian secularist discourse is,
among other unpleasant things, very repetitive.If it has discovered a successful line for incriminating the Hindus, it
is bound to repeat and revive that line endlessly.So, a few months after the American domino
effect of the “Nazi textbook” offensive, the Times of India’s Tina
Parekh claims in her title that “Modi's Gujarat worships
Hitler” (23 July 2005).Note first of
all the wildly exaggerated language: nowhere in her actual report is any fact
mentioned that amounts to “worship”, a concept of which the secularists have no
experience anyway.

It
seems the reprints of the indicted textbooks hadn’t changed sufficiently.So this is her story: “The world over, it
would be outrageous to attribute the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews were
butchered by Nazis, to German nationalism, without the faintest hint of
condemnation.But not in Gujarat where,
a year after the eruption of a controversy over distortion of history in school
textbooks, students got updated books that continue to talk about Nazism as ‘a
co-ordination of nationalism and socialism’.”

Are we now supposed
to feel scandalized?What else did she
think Nazism, or National-Socialism in full, really was?Yes, much as Indian leftists may want to deny
it, Hitler did pursue a form of socialism along with nationalism.Only socialists would read that as a form of
praise.And as we have already seen,
even the unchanged textbooks did condemn the Holocaust.There was no reason to change an account that
happens to be factual, even if authored by Congress-appointed historians, and
even if misrepresented by Ms. Parekh as follows: “In the revised social studies
textbooks for classes IX and X, grave distortions persist along with an
uncritical appraisal of Hitler and his Nazis.Times of India last year raised the issue of glorification of
Hitler in the Class X textbook, but that book is still taught in classrooms
across the state because the BJP government took the defence that these books
were introduced during the previous Congress regime.”

Then she mentions the
Class IX social studies textbook which apparently covers the same ground and
again “glorifies Hitler”.As proof, she
quotes: “Hitler adopted aggressive policy and led the Germans towards ardent
nationalism.”And: “Due to severe
nationalism of Italy
and Germany
and their aggressive policy, the nations of the world thought of forming groups.”Once more, the account is not untruthful,
eventhough the wording is embarrassingly clumsy.Twice it mentions Hitler’s “aggressive
policy”, which only the Times of India reads as a way of “glorifying
Hitler”.It is simply a lie to say that
the book treats the Nazi record “without the faintest hint of condemnation”.

The BBC News website (bbc.co.uk, 23-7-2005, “‘Nazi’ row
over Indian textbooks”) immediately relayed the story worldwide: “Human
rights campaigners in India's
Gujarat state have condemned school textbooks
which they say praise Hitler.The books are issued by the
Hindu nationalist state government.One
includes a chapter on the ‘internal achievements of Nazism’.A Jesuit priest and social
activist, Cedric Prakash, says the books contain more than 300 factual errors
and make little mention of the holocaust.”

The
Jesuits are wiser than the secularists, who are smitten with hubris and drunk
on their currently unlimited power.Whereas the Times of India prefers to quote itself and highlight
its own earlier “revelations” on the matter, the Jesuit leaves the honour to
others and positions himself as a humble go-between for the “protests from
parents, peace activists and educationists”.The secularists’ lies are bound to get exposed one day, and their names
will become synonymous with “liar”, but the Jesuits have famously perfected the
art of “lying without lying”.Rarely do
they get caught in the act of uttering an actual lie, even when their audience
comes away with an understanding of matters that is different from the
truth.They won’t formally lie by
alleging that the book denies or ignores the Holocaust, but create the same
effect among receptive audiences by saying that it “makes little mention” of
the Holocaust.But what is “little” in
schoolbooks that have to cover the causes, conduct, outcome and after-effects
of World War 2 in just a few pages?As
I’ve been able to verify, all the other subplots of Nazi history are equally
rushed through in a few sentences, if discussed at all.

The BBC has learned a thing or two
from the Jesuits.It is often
aggressively partisan but has perfected the art of creating a false semblance
of even-handedness.In this case, it
also gives a say to the accused party: “The Gujarat
government has dismissed the charges as baseless.A senior official from the state education
department told the BBC that anomalies arose when the book was translated from
Gujarati into English, and are being quoted out of context.”

That’s definitely not all he told
the reporters, for he can hardly have left unmentioned that upon scrutiny, the
textbook turns out to be pretty mainstream in its view of World War 2
history.Yes, it is a vague on details
and shabby in language, not unlike textbooks in many Indian states and on many
subjects, but it does teach the principal facts.The BBC, however, prefers to withhold that
crucial information and presents the government spokesman as being evasive by
shifting the problem from the English to the Gujarati version of the textbook
rather than defending the textbook’s contents in either version.

Under the present power equation,
where the pro-Hindu forces have almost no capable presence in the media and
among the influential experts, this kind of libel against a Hindu-minded
government is virtually inevitable.It
will keep on happening until Hindus get their act together and their message
across.

On the bright side, though, we
should also notice that the Hindu-hating coalition is practically admitting the
hollowness of its case if it is reduced to proving “Hindu fascism” with nothing
better than the misrepresentation of a provincial school textbook.Not actual policies, nothing of material
consequence to any of the minorities, not even the much-discussed NCERT
national history textbooks, only a few paragraphs from two textbooks in a
single state, and even those had to be misrepresented for the desired
effect.The uninformed public (which
includes quite a few so-called experts) may be fooled by the Hindu-baiters’
bluff, but anyone who scrutinizes the arguments will see through it.The record of BJP governance has utterly
disproved the shrill allegations of “Hindu fascism”.

The Gujarat government or the BJP should have sued TOI for defamation. They could have organized a party demonstration in front of the TOI office. I am not sure any of this happened. Nowadays, TOI is not so anti Modi; at least less than The Hindu and Indian Express. Perhaps the change was helped by the departure of Dileep Padgaonkar from the Editorial Board. Padgaonkar is know for his hate Hindu mindset and for his association in meetings organised by Ghulam Nabi Fai, duly vetted by Pakistan's ISI. Of course, he had for company other distinguished secularists such as Rajinder Sachar.

About Me

Koenraad Elst (°Leuven 1959) distinguished himself early on as eager to learn and to dissent. After a few hippie years he studied at the KU Leuven, obtaining MA degrees in Sinology, Indology and Philosophy. After a research stay at Benares Hindu University he did original fieldwork for a doctorate on Hindu nationalism, which he obtained magna cum laude in 1998.
As an independent researcher he earned laurels and ostracism with his findings on hot items like Islam, multiculturalism and the secular state, the roots of Indo-European, the Ayodhya temple/mosque dispute and Mahatma Gandhi's legacy. He also published on the interface of religion and politics, correlative cosmologies, the dark side of Buddhism, the reinvention of Hinduism, technical points of Indian and Chinese philosophies, various language policy issues, Maoism, the renewed relevance of Confucius in conservatism, the increasing Asian stamp on integrating world civilization, direct democracy, the defence of threatened freedoms, and the Belgian question. Regarding religion, he combines human sympathy with substantive skepticism.